Monday, May 12, 2025

BEQ 15:08 (Eric) [4.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
LAT 2:26 (Stella) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
NYT untimed (Jenni) [3.25 avg; 8 ratings] rate it
The New Yorker 5:47 (Amy) [3.80 avg; 5 ratings] rate it
Universal untimed (pannonica) [3.00 avg; 1 rating] rate it
USA Today tk (?) rate it
WSJ 4:33 (Jim) [3.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it

Sam Koperwas & Jeff Chen’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “It’s Deja Vu All Over Again”—Jim’s review

Theme answers are a list of partial Yogi-isms, i.e. words of wisdom from YOGI BERRA (63a, [Baseball Hall of Famer who would be 100 today, and whose insights are noted at 17-, 24-, 39- and 51-Across]).

Wall St Journal crossword solution · “It’s Deja Vu All Over Again” · Sam Koperwas & Jeff Chen · Mon., 5.12.25

• 17a. [“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about…”] THE FUTURE.
• 24a. [“Ninety percent of the game…”] IS HALF MENTAL.
• 39a. [“Never answer an…”] ANONYMOUS LETTER.
• 51a. [“You can observe a lot by…”] JUST WATCHING.

Not sure how I feel about a tribute puzzle like this. On the one hand, I love the witticisms here, but on the other hand, a theme is supposed to help a solver solve the puzzle. But knowing that this theme is a list of somewhat random quotes doesn’t help if a solver gets stuck. Probably I shouldn’t overthink it and just enjoy the ride, which I did. For more Yogi-isms go to the Yogi Berra Museum & Learning Center site. (Interesting to note that their version of the “watching” quote doesn’t have the word “just”.)

Moving on, we get some strong long stacks in the corner with NEGOTIATES / NO MEAN FEAT in the NE and TINA TURNER / EGO MASSAGE in the SW. Ooh, and I just spied a cool stack of Col. HOGAN and Col. CLONK (joking—HOGAN is clued [Navajo dwelling], and I know it’s Col. “Klink” not CLONK).

Clues of note:

• 15d. [Mirror image]. SELF. A little bit of a tricky clue that made me pause.
• 53d. [Sound of a mic drop]. CLONK. I think it’s more of “thunk” actually.

Solid Monday outing. Three stars.

Doug Peterson & Angela Kinsella Olson’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up

Los Angeles Times 5/12/25 by Doug Peterson & Angela Kinsella Olson

This is a theme I’ve seen many times before, made new by a revealer: 40D, [Initial perfume scents, or what can be found in the answers to the starred clues], is TOP NOTES. All the theme entries have to be Down answers, because a type of musical NOTE (FLAT, SHARP, or NATURAL) is the first, or TOP, word, in each theme answer:

• 3D [*Neighborhood where the Brooklyn Dodgers played] is FLATBUSH.
• 5D [*ZZ Top hit with the lyric “Silk suit, black tie”] is SHARP DRESSED MAN.
• 9D [*Soil, water, or wind, e.g.] is NATURAL RESOURCE.

The puzzle played harder than normal for a Monday, which I suspect has a lot to do with there being quite a lot of words in the 5- to 7-letter range. There’s also a decent amount of trivia — the clues for TAFT and AZTEC, for example, are more niche knowledge than I’d normally expect on Monday.

Susan Gelfand’s Universal crossword, “May I Take Your Order?” — pannonica’s write-up

Universal • 5/12/25 • Mon • “May I Take Your Order?” • Gelfand • solution • 20250512

Cute and clever theme.

• 17a. [Lunch menu favorite of a psychologist?] SHRINK WRAP.
• 26a. [Lunch menu favorite of a cosmologist?] ASTRONOMY CLUB.
• 44a. [Lunch menu favorite of an interior designer?] DECORATED HERO.
• 58a. [Lunch menu favorite of an upholsterer?] SPRING MELT.

Consistent in that they’re all sandwiches. Theme-adjacent: 30d [Japanese box meal] BENTO.

• 26d [Helped out] AIDED. 52d [Help illicitly] ABET.
• 1a [Like Arctic winters] HARSH. But getting milder, alarmingly. The polar regions are warming several times faster than the rest of the planet. Systems are breaking down.
• 22a [Planet with the shortest day in our solar system] JUPITER. Did not know this, or more likely forgot it.
• 36a [Ornamental columns] PILLARS. I would posit that they’re primarily structural.

Christina Iverson’s New York Times Crossword — Jenni’s review

Sorry for the delay! Good morning and happy Monday to all.

I caught on to the theme early on and found it a bit confusing.

There’s a pattern to the theme answers.

New York Times, May 12, 2025, Christina Iverson, solution grid

• 17a [Dessert cocktail with crème de cacao] is a BRANDY ALEXANDER.
• 34a [Classic board game with the Peppermint Forest and Lollipop Lane] is CANDYLAND.
• 42a [Move from an acrobat or breakdancer] is a HANDSTAND.
• 59a [Scottish archipelago west of Norway] is the SHETLAND ISLANDS.

And (so to speak) the revealer, which is tucked away in a corner: 56d [Boy’s name…or how you might describe 17-, 34-, 42-, or 59-Across?] is ANDY. There are lots of ANDs – two in each theme answer – which makes them ANDY in the way a beach is SANDY. That’s fine. I was a bit confused by the presence of ANDY as a string in the first two themers. Or maybe I was misled. In any case, it’s a solid Monday theme with the smooth fill I expect from Christina.

What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that Montana is the only US state with a MOTTO in Spanish.

Elizabeth Gorski’s New Yorker crossword—Amy’s recap

New Yorker crossword solution, 5/12/25 – Gorski

Fave fill: WHITTLE, AGAINST THE GRAIN, “PUN INTENDED,” “BIG DEAL,” SET DESIGN, CONCEALER.

With 13a’s clue being [Prick] and having -HOLE in place, yes, I filled in ASSHOLE. Alas, it turned out to be PINHOLE.

Did not know: [Lark’s singing rival in a Dryden poem], LINNET. It’s an Old World bird.

Surprised by the outbursts of crosswordese and other not particularly welcome fill. DHOW, OENO, NEY! BIOGAS occupying 1a. ESTD ASE NES BMI SCI PTL THEEI TASS AIG, abbreviations or partials or word fragments.

Lunch time now! 2.5 stars from me.

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1782 — Eric’s review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1782 — 5/12/25

I got off to a quick start with this one, but then ran into just enough snags that the puzzle lived up to the “Hard” label.

The nine-letter triple-stacks in the NW and SE feel fresh and have just vague enough clueing to make them both a bit challenging:

• 1A [Crate digging and scratching is a part of it] DJ CULTURE When I had enough letters to get CULTURE, I thought the answer would be LP CULTURE, which seemed like green paint. Fortunately, I was wrong about those first two letters.
• 15A [One helping another take steps] AA SPONSOR A reference to the 12 steps in that recovery program.
• 17A [Entreat persistently] IMPORTUNE Neat word that you don’t often see in a crossword (or anywhere else).
• 54A [Water world?] OCEANARIA I don’t think I’d ever encountered “oceanarium” before, much less the Latin-inspired plural.
• 57A [Magician’s coverage] TUX JACKET
• 59A [Assuage] SET AT EASE

Other notable clue and answer pairs:

• 28A [Newcomer to a nursery] SAPLING Trees, not babies.
• 31A [Boxer Michael with the nickname “Jinx”] SPINKS I started to fill in that answer, then remembered the one-time heavyweight champ’s first name as Leon. Today I learned that Leon had a brother named Michael.
• 43A [Bank account number?] ATM PIN CODE “PIN code” is almost as annoyingly redundant as “PIN number.”
• 11D [“A Star Is Born” costar (2018)] SAM ELLIOTT The Lady Gaga/Bradley Cooper version of that story is the only one that I haven’t seen. I didn’t remember that Sam Elliott (who’s great in almost anything) was in it, but a few letters were enough to fill in the rest of his name.
• 26D [Musical groups of five] PENTUPLETS I thought of groups of performers at first, but QUINTETS didn’t fit. 26A [___ Alto Networks (cybersecurity company)] seemed likely to be PALO, so the P got me PENT-. I’ve looked at several dictionaries, but few have this word. One definition I found is “a tuplet of five notes to be played in the time for four.” That’s way beyond my very limited musical understanding.
• 29D [Out line?] PERIMETER Clever clue.
• 34D [Emphasis in print] BOLD TEXT I lost a bit of time by sticking with BOLD FACE for too long; it wasn’t until I substituted TEXT that I could see TUX JACKET.